Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.